Headline acts at Latitude usually do abridged versions of a current show or an imminent show. Dara Ó Briain was a particularly appealing star attraction on the festival’s opening night because it really felt like a special event. He hasn't done much in the way of warm-ups and he hasn't got a tour lined up yet. Though I suspect that an announcement is imminent.
He certainly has plenty of new material to take on the road and he looked pretty match fit, albeit revealing a pair of dubious kneecaps just below his khaki shorts. The Mock The Week host speaks so quickly – he has to to keep up with his turbo-powered brain – that his 50-minute set was probably the equivalent of most comedians’ two hour stints. It was fast, furious and very, very funny.
There was probably less audience interaction here than in a full show. Maybe due to the shorter slot he wanted to get down to business, which he did in style. Ó Briain (picture © Bruce Dessau) is such a warm, inventive storyteller he can even get away with the inevitable opening trope of talking about who he gets mistaken for – from Al Murray to the cartoon Megabus logo to pretty much any big, bald bloke in his case (confession – I call one of our neighbours Dara behind his back. Needless to say I don’t need to describe him to you).
The rest of the show took fairly familiar fare and made it sparkle, from sexual behaviour to post-Yewtree times at the BBC. It seems to be a bit of a theme among celebrities at the moment that they talk about their place in the fame firmament. After David Baddiel and Frank Skinner going down that path Ó Briain also pondered on the nature of celebrity and how one can die a slow death as the phone stops ringing, except to invite one onto reality TV shows.
Ó Briain has a fantastically sharp brain, but he never insults his audience’s intelligence. He talked engagingly about Comic Relief – despite doing it he was honest enough to admit he hardly needed to go to Africa to learn about the problems there. This was not arrogance, this was common sense. There was a great anecdote involving his mother’s response to his near-death experience on the river out there, suggesting that a playful sensibility runs in his family.
Of course there was a bit of the inevitable Ó Briain interaction with his audience towards the end, mainly involving a boy called Zak who was far more mature than he seemed, but maybe not quite mature enough to grasp all the nuances of the big Irishman’s routine about what men really find sexy in women. The show was probably an education for Zak, but then when O’Briain is on a roll like this his show is probably an education for most of us. A comedy masterclass.
Postscript. Despite a brilliant critique of Strictly Come Dancing during the show and his vow never to appear on it, Ó Briain was spotted cutting a pretty decent rug at Guilty Pleasures after his gig. Unless it was the bloke from the Megabus adverts.
